CASEY JANE ELLISON

PHOTOGRAPHY CARLOS SERRAO FASHION MARYAM MALAKPOUR TEXT KEVIN MCGARRY

WITH A READY-TO-WATCH FASHION-THEMED SPIN OFF OF HER OWN LIFE, THE ATTENTION-GRABBING ARTIST/COMEDIAN/VFILES CORRESPONDENT PROVES THAT HER BRAND OF SELF-EFFACING HUMOR IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD

CLICK THROUGH THE SLIDESHOW TO SEE WHAT THE F*SHION, EPISODES 1 AND 2 (PREMIERE)!

If Casey Jane Ellison were a one-woman band it would probably be a goth one from somewhere oppressively sunny, like Los Angeles, where the New York-based artist was born and raised. Alternating metaphorical hats like a British socialite—animator, curator, cewebrity, stand up comic—Ellison is recognizable by her de facto uniform of black cutoffs, black shirt, black lipstick. It’s in this getup that she hosts VFILES’s Status Update, an MTV News style YouTube run down of the week in memes, hashtags, and meta-trends, taking on the persona of Your Girl Case Case, a slightly more deadpan and self-involved version of herself. “Self-objectification is a big part of my work,” she explains. Perennially over it, the most life Case Case is likely to cough up is a whip-flip of her long, shiny hair to accent an esoteric pun drawn from reality TV—or, more likely, a preening question to the audience about herself. Ellison’s stand-up, is a similar brand of humor, pushed into a different context, in a highly regimented form. “Self-publishing is important to everything I do,” she says, and she considers all her varied activities as arms of a burgeoning DIY empire. Another is Aboveground Animation, an itinerant screening series she founded in 2008 so that likeminded abjection—inspired animators like Kathleen Daniels and Barry Doupé—could have a forum in which to show their work together. In a recent video by Ellison, a bald, disembodied head resembling the artist cyclically sounds off on its obsessive insecurities. The cold, dark heart of Ellison’s practice is a gleefully self-effacing humor. She cites a pantheon of female comics, “I love Goldie Hawn, Roseanne, Tig Notaro, and Whoopi,” but her influences aren’t too discerning; she adds, “Steve Martin and Louis CK, ‘cause I’m into sweet DILFs.” And where does Ellison look for inspiration in the all-too-often airless world of art? “K8 Hardy’s humor is really powerful to me. Ryan Trecartin’s and Mike Kelley’s, too. Humor in any world is a vaporizer—Once you laugh, you can breathe and take in more.” Then she adds, "Can you add in text somewhere that says I am the inventor of the comedienne avatar? Because I want everyone to know I did that first."